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The journey is always the same, and never the same. As Ian Bostridge remarks, at the end of his prize-winning book Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, when the wanderer asks Der Leiermann, “Will you play your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?”, in the final song of Winterreise, the ‘crazy but logical procedure would be to go right back to the beginning of the whole cycle and start all over again’.

It felt rather decadent to be sitting in an opera house at 12pm. Even more so given the passion-fuelled excesses of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, which might seem rather too sensual and savage for mid-day consumption.

Manitoba Opera opened its 45th season with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly proving that the aching heart as expressed through art knows no racial or cultural divide, with the Italian composer’s self-avowed favourite opera still able to spread its poetic wings across time and space since its Milan premiere in 1904.

In 1992, concert promoter Heinz Liebrecht introduced pianist Julius Drake to tenor Ian Bostridge and an acclaimed, inspiring musical partnership was born. On Wenlock Edge formed part of their first programme, at Holkham Hall in Norfolk; and, so, in this recital at Middle Temple Hall, celebrating their 25 years of music-making, the duo included Vaughan Williams’ Housman settings for tenor, piano and string quartet alongside works with a seventeenth-century origin or flavour.

Not many (maybe any) of the new operas presented by San Francisco Opera over the past 10 years would lure me to the War Memorial Opera House a second time around. But for Girls of the Golden West just now I would be there again tomorrow night and the next, and I am eagerly awaiting all future productions.

It’s taken a while for Rossini’s Semiramide to reach the Covent Garden stage. The last of the operas which Rossini composed for Italian theatres between 1810-1823, Semiramide has had only one outing at the Royal Opera House since 1887, and that was a concert version in 1986.

‘His master’s masterpiece, the work of heaven’: ‘a common fountain’ from which flow ‘pure silver drops’. At the risk of effulgent hyperbole, I’d suggest that Antonio’s image of the blessed governance and purifying power of the French court - in the opening scene of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi - is also a perfect metaphor for the voice of French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, as it slips through Handel’s roulades like a silken ribbon.

From the start of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s splendid, new production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre conflict and resolution are portrayed throughout with moving intensity. The central character Brünnhilde is sung by Christine Goerke and her father Wotan by Eric Owens.

Compared to the oft-explored world of German lieder and French chansons, the songs of Russia are unfairly neglected in recordings and in the concert hall. The raw emotion and expansive lyricism present in much of this repertoire was clearly in evidence at the Holywell Music Room for the penultimate day of the celebrated Oxford Lieder Festival.

This concert was an event on several levels - marking a decade since the death of Stockhausen, the fortieth anniversary (almost to the day) since Singcircle first performed STIMMUNG (at the Round House), and their final public performance of the piece. It was also a rare opportunity to hear (and see) Stockhausen’s last completed purely electronic work, COSMIC PULSES - an overwhelming visual and aural experience that anyone who was at this concert will long remember.

Winston Graham’s 1961 novel Marnie was bold for its time. Its themes of sexual repression, psychological suspense and criminality set within the dark social fabric of contemporary Britain are but outlier themes of the anti-heroine’s own narrative of deceit, guilt, multiple identities and blackmail.

On November 12, 2017, Arizona Opera presented Giacomo Puccini’s verismo opera, Tosca, in a dramatic production directed by Tara Faircloth. Her production utilized realistic scenery from Seattle Opera and detailed costumes from the New York City Opera. Gregory Allen Hirsch’s lighting made the set look like the church of St. Andrea as some of us may have remembered it from time gone by.

‘Only make the reader’s general vision of evil intense enough and his own experience, his own imagination, his own sympathy and horror will supply him quite sufficiently with all the particulars. Make him think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications.’

Austrian singer Elisabeth Kulman has had an interesting career trajectory. She began her singing life as a soprano but later shifted to mezzo-soprano/contralto territory. Esteemed on the operatic stage, she relinquished the theatre for the concert platform in 2015, following an accident while rehearsing Tristan.

The morning sickness, miscarriage and maundering wraiths are still present, but Katie Mitchell’s Lucia di Lammermoor, receiving its first revival at the ROH, seems less ‘hysterical’ this time round - and all the more harrowing for it.

Nothing but a wall and a floor (and an enormous battery of unseen lighting instruments) and two perfectly matched artists, the Manon of soprano Ellie Dehn and the des Grieux of tenor Michael Fabiano, the centerpiece of Paris’ operatic Belle Époque found vibrant presence on the War Memorial stage.

This production’s first and only Sarastro, Franz-Josef Selig, steps back
into the High Priest’s hallowed shoes; several esteemed soloists from the
2008 run return - Christopher Maltman reprising his confident, mischievous
Papageno, and Kate Royal once again presenting a dignified and elegant Pamina.
With the original conductor, Sir Colin Davis, at the helm, a smooth sailing
should be guaranteed; however, there were a few unexpected wobbles on this
opening night, and if the ship didn’t hit the rocks it certainly lost its
moorings on occasion.

John Macfarlane’s designs are still strikingly sumptuous: effortless
transitions between lavish tableaux, packed with period details and evocatively
lit by Paule Constable, transport one — as if gliding aloft a magic
carpet — to other worlds. Die Zauberflöte is a compendium of
styles, forms and moods: Masonic mysticism rubs shoulders with pantomime farce;
erudite Enlightenment philosophy sits alongside an earthy tale of human
endeavour and love. And McVicar and his designer, John Macfarlane, skilfully
conjure and combine these domains: scientific astronomical apparatus whisk us
back to an empirical eighteenth-century, the sweeping glare of an outsized
crescent moon casts a supernatural spell. So, it is perhaps all the more
surprising that a few ‘false notes’ are allowed to creep in.

Christopher Maltman as Papageno and Kate Royal as Pamina

Maltman’s Papageno is warm-hearted and exuberant. Although perhaps not
exploiting the full colour range and power of his increasingly varied palette
and rich baritonal resonance, Maltman revelled in the moments of comedic
flippancy and fun; admittedly this was sometimes at the expense of rhythmic
precision, and he occasionally lost touch with the pit — thereby
unintentionally emphasising the bird-catcher’s anarchic streak.

As Sarastro, Franz-Josef Selig, struck an imposing physical figure: regal,
poised and self-possessed. His diction was impressive (alone among the cast,
his is singing in his native tongue), and although he took a little while to
settle down in, particularly in the middle range, his performance was
commanding and secure.

Kate Royal’s soprano is strong, sure and gorgeous in tone, but while
gracious and composed, I feel that physically and vocally she lacks some of the
child-like naivety which is integral to the role of Pamina. There was no
doubting the beauty and grace of her vocal line. Her duet with Papageno,
‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen’, was achingly touching, but was
equalled in affecting loveliness by ‘Ach, ich fühl's’.
Royal’s strength and control were not quite matched by her Tamino, Joseph
Kaiser, and this was particularly noticeable in the lover’s
‘reunion scene’. Kaiser’s portrayal was rather
one-dimensional but he compensated for some occasionally wooden acting with a
flexible, light voice aptly conveying the youthful optimism and bravery of the
idealistic hero.

From Left To Right: Elisabeth Meister as First Lady, Jessica Pratt as Queen of the Night, Kai Rüütel as Second Lady and at the back, Gaynor Keeble as Third Lady

As the Queen of the Night, Jessica Pratt, making her role and house debut,
had all the notes, and hit them cleanly. While her top notes were warm and
true, without a hint of stridency or loss of power, her lower register
projected less well and she did not really convey the menace of the would-be
murderer. A general lack of dramatic and musical subtlety, as in the recitative
to her first aria, ‘O zittre nicht’, diluted the impact of the
Queen’s vengeful terrorising.

British tenor, Peter Hoare, was an eccentric Monostatos, who in this
production is made to bear the bulk of the burden for creating comedy and
lightness. A caricature villain, he is less dangerous racial threat, the
embodiment of ‘otherness’, and more a harmless, if ridiculous,
be-wigged dandy, the epitome of vanity. Matthew Best was an authoritative
Speaker, imperiously directing Tamino to the ‘right path’,
effectively establishing a moment of dramatic gravitas at the end of Act 1.

Several Jette Parker Young Artists were given opportunities to shine. The
First and Second Ladies, Elisabeth Meister and Kai Rüütel respectively, were
joined by the more experienced Gaynor Keeble to form a well-blended trio. Their
stage-craft, however, seemed rather undirected, particularly in the opening
scene where, given that the hand-manipulated, puppet serpent (just one of many
of McVicar’s overt debts to eighteenth-century theatrical paraphernalia),
though wonderfully charming, hardly chills the blood. Thus, the black-clad
Ladies need to generate an air of peril and intimidation; but, rhythmic
co-ordination was a little wayward and there was a lack of projection. As
Papagena, JPYA Anna Devin — attractive both vocally and physically
— should have been an irresistible ‘catch’ for Papageno. But,
inexplicably, she was presented not as a beauty disguised as a beggar, but in
attire more fitting for a bordello boudoir — no wonder Papageno looked
away in disgust.

The chorus was rather ragged and some of the responsibility for the poor
ensemble must rest with Sir Colin Davis, a supremely experienced Mozartian, but
who nevertheless failed to pace this production effectively. After a
wonderfully stately start to the overture — where the warm weight,
focused intonation and glossy sheen of the horns powerfully established the
mood of Masonic majesty — the Allegro failed to catch fire, and
the spark of conflict and contrast which should drive the opera forward was
never quite ignited. (Moreover, the orb-carrying extras wandering rather
purposelessly through the stalls hardly helped matters.) Davis chooses to
ignore the period performance specialists’ preference for pace and
nimbleness; but while this should not prevent an effective dramatic momentum
being achieved, some of the tempi were overly ponderous — particularly
the Priests’ March and Sarastro’s ‘O Isis and Osiris’
at the opening of Act 2 which was decidedly sluggish. Indeed, even Selig lost
contact with the pit, a rare moment of discomposure. Davis was however
sensitive to the soloists, controlling dynamics and texture to provide
appropriate accompanying support, especially in the case of the Three Boys
(Jacob Ramsay-Patel, Harry Stanton and Harry Manton) who shone through —
and stayed in time …

Overall this was an enjoyable, if slightly unsatisfactory, opening night.
Perhaps insufficient time was allotted to this well-known revival; if so,
things should improve as the run progresses.